Could someone give me the plain English version of what it is EXACTLY that we are "mining" for ?
I understand we are processing " transactions" but what is it that we find that " solves " a block and finishes it. ?
Consider every transaction as the text "I from my wallet with address XXXX am sending to person with wallet YYYY the amount of ZZZZ BTC, which I am signing with my electronic signature for that wallet"
Now we all put a list of such transactions in a list and each one of us is signing that list with his own electronic signature by adding a transaction that states: "I confirm that I have checked all the transactions listed at date DDDD and there are no double spends - for which I will be rewarded 25 BTC" ... the one who is lucky that by applying his signature produces a result that starts with more zeroes than required from the network difficulty is the winner to 'solve' the block and is rewarded for that.
We are 'mining' the reward for 'solving' a block by signing it with our signature and the time we did that